post-Tertiaryn.adj.
/ˌpəʊs(t)ˈtəːʃ(ə)ri/, U.S. /ˌpoʊs(t)ˈtərʃiˌɛri/, /ˌpoʊs(t)ˈtərʃəri/ Geology and Physical Geography.† A. n.
The period subsequent to the Tertiary period; the Quaternary. Also: the series of deposits dating from this time. Obsolete.
ΚΠ
1842 E. Hitchcock Elem. Geol. (new ed.) xi. 334 The post tertiary also, with shells of a highly arctic character, has been recognized in New York and Canada.
1855 E. Hitchcock Elem. Geol. (new ed.) ii. ii. 349 Of deer some thirty or forty species have been found in the tertiary and post-tertiary.
1870 Jrnl. Amer. Geogr. & Statist. Soc. 2 ii. 67 South America, the land of edentates, was inhabited during the post-tertiary by giant representatives of that order.
1896 Catholic World Apr. 16 The Mastodon..lived on well into the post tertiary, until what is called by archeologists the palaeolithic, or old stone age.
B. adj.
Of, relating to, or designating the post-Tertiary; formed or occurring subsequent to the Tertiary period. Cf. post-Pliocene adj., quaternary adj. 2.
ΚΠ
1852 W. F. Lynch Official Rep. U.S. Exped. Dead Sea v. ii. 184 The peninsula itself is an accumulation of post-tertiary deposits disposed horizontally.
1873 Proc. Lyceum Nat. Hist. N.Y. 2nd Ser. 77 The President exhibited a set of skulls of the large post-tertiary peccary, Dicotyles compressus, Leconte, lately discovered near Columbus, Ohio.
1963 Nature 13 July 128/2 In considering post-Tertiary speciation we are bound to use data concerning the present-day distribution of species which are seldom known from an evolutionary point of view.
1999 M. E. Adams in W. M. Adams et al. Physical Geogr. Afr. xii. 198 Where post-Tertiary dissection has taken place and the soils have higher levels of exchangeable bases, variation in the composition of the savanna woodland is greater.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.1842